Eschew Obfuscation
by Doctor Lennon 007
Summary: A typical morning at Baker Street - a caseless Sherlock explains chaos theory to John, but John's furious about an entirely different form of chaos in 221B's kitchen! Pre-Reichenbach, Johnlock if you squint, one-shot


**When I was playing Monopoly last night, I barely missed Sherlock! Instead, I only landed on free parking. Ah, the difference between an eleven and a twelve . . . sniff sniff.**

**A/N: I'm trying my hand at Sherlock fanfiction with this one-shot, so enjoy!**

* * *

It was a normal morning at 221B Baker Street. In other words, hell had not yet broken loose, but storm clouds were clearly visible on the horizon.

John wandered through the sitting room, fully dressed but still sporting a spectacular bedhead.

"Morning, Sherlock," he mumbled, stifling a yawn and blinking eyes still gummed half-shut with sleep.

"Is it morning already?" inquired Sherlock, looking over at John and breaking his silent vigil of the wall from his seat on the sofa.

"Yes, it's morning," sighed John. "Has been for about seven hours now."

Sherlock swore under his breath. "I was so close to figuring it out . . . but now, of course, I won't be able to, everyone will be bumbling through here loudly. I'll have to start from scratch tonight."

"What were you trying to figure out?" asked John, blinking laboriously and running a hand through his bedhead.

"An irregularity in an experiment I've been running in the kitchen," replied Sherlock dismissively. "I can't figure out why the compounds were so unexpectedly volatile. I've been working on the problem all night. I even resorted to chaos theory, if you want to know how truly desperate I've been."

"That . . . tells me nothing about how desperate you've been," replied John, sitting down in his armchair and resigning himself to another day babysitting the caseless Sherlock.

"Well, obviously I'm not exactly a follower of chaos theory," replied Sherlock, swatting a hand in front of his face as if he were trying to sweep away a troublesome gnat. "Just look at the scientific method of my deductions in cases, and you'll see quite clearly that I don't buy into the notion that deterministic, unpredictable systems compose the vast majority of reality."

A clock ticked in the background. Mrs. Hudson hummed downstairs. Birds chirped outside. A car drove past, sending a grumbling ripple of sound through the apartment.

John blinked again and shook his already far too messy bedhead. "Sherlock, I don't even know what chaos theory _is_."

Sherlock sighed. "Oh, come on, John! I thought that even _you _would have read about it, after a grossly oversimplified version was published and came out as a bestseller."

John raised an eyebrow dubiously. "If by oversimplification you mean 'understandable to those of us who don't speak calculus fluently,' then that's not oversimplification, Sherlock."

"To understand the concept of nonlinear equations such as the logistic difference equation, one needs a grasp of at least elementary calculus," sniffed Sherlock.

"Fine, I'll bite," replied John, leaning back in his chair. "What's chaos theory?"

"Sensitive dependence on initial conditions," rattled off Sherlock. "The self-similarity and unpredictability of deterministic, nonlinear systems that comprise the vast majority of our universe. The Lorenz attractor, the Butterfly Effect. The Koch curve. Topological mixing. Density of per –"

John blinked and raised a hand to stop Sherlock, who abruptly cut off the avalanche of words that had been tumbling from his lips.

"Sherlock, it's seven o'clock in the morning. I have no idea what you're talking about," the doctor informed his flatmate.

"I thought I was being unusually clear," replied Sherlock, frowning. He straightened his housecoat, seeming rather miffed.

"Sherlock, that was about as clear as concrete blocks," replied John.

"Ooh, a metaphor," muttered Sherlock sarcastically, widening his eyes and making a hand gesture resembling a miniature explosion.

"Now, let's try again: what's chaos theory?" asked John. "And this time, you only get to explain in one-syllable words."

Sherlock glared at John. "This is a highly –"

"That's two syllables," cut in John smugly. "Start over."

Sherlock's mouth tightened as he tried again. "Bug in Hong Kong makes rain in New York City. Do not know what a set of things will do next. Er . . . fractals are an – wait, no, "fractals" has two syllables."

Sherlock stared furiously at the bullet holes in the Victorian wallpaper opposite.

"It's okay, that's good enough," offered John kindly. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and yawned widely. "I think it's time for some tea."

"Excellent," replied Sherlock. "I'll have it with two sugars, please."

"I meant," replied John, stumbling to his feet, "tea for myself. But yes, I'll make you some tea, too."

"Of course you will," replied Sherlock, apparently nonplussed.

John groaned. "If Lestrade doesn't come up those stairs with a fascinating double murder soon, I don't know what I'm going to do with you . . . ."

Sherlock twiddled his thumbs for a second. John sighed, staring into the middle distance. Another car drove past, growling and zooming down Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson's kettle downstairs whistled, but the shriek was quickly terminated.

"Well?" Sherlock finally prompted. "Are you going to make my tea?"

John rolled his eyes. "Of course I am."

The doctor turned and wandered into the kitchen, attempting to pat down his hair. Sherlock brought his hands to his chin, as if in prayer, closed his eyes, and retreated to his mind palace to search for possible causes of the chemical irregularity he'd experienced earlier.

"SHERLOCK!" shouted John furiously in the kitchen. "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE TEA?"

Sherlock's eyes snapped open. "The tea?" asked the consulting detective. "Oh, yes, the tea. That was the source of unexpected volatility I was talking about earlier."

John stormed back into the living room, tracking black goop from the soles of his shoes after him. With his hair sticking up all over the place, he truly looked the part of a madman.

"Volatility of _tea_?" asked John. His voice, though of a stable volume, trembled dangerously close to murderous rage.

"You see, I wanted to examine the effects of radioactive isotopes on black tea," replied Sherlock, lowering his hands. "I was wondering if it could possibly be a method of slow poisoning, but I thought it might have an unexpected chemical reaction."

"Does that theory include blowing up our entire stock of tea?" growled John, his fists clenched so tightly Sherlock idly peered at them to see if his fingernails had cut so deep into his palms that they were bleeding.

"That's the volatility I told you about earlier," tutted Sherlock. "Were you even trying to follow our conversation?"

"THE ENTIRE STOCK OF TEA!" John shouted. "YOU BLEW UP ALL OF OUR TEA!"

"Not all of it," replied Sherlock reasonably. "The rooibos our last client gave us is still in the cupboard, I believe. As is the Earl Grey I obtained from Mycroft."

"You stole that tea from Mycroft," accused John, pointing at Sherlock angrily. "And you know that, like a normal person, I don't like _Earl Grey_ with a _lemon slice_. And what the bloody hell is arubies?"

"It's rooibos, not arubies," Sherlock informed him impatiently. "It's an herbal tea. It supposedly helps with allergies."

John's face grew rather red. "I want," he said, gritting his teeth, "a cup of tea. Not a 'saucer of aroobus' or _Earl Grey _with LEMON!"

Sherlock shrugged. "I'm sure you can get something at the café. Make sure mine has two sugars."

His hands returned to their resting place beneath his chin. John stormed out of the room and tramped down the stairs, leaving a path of gooey black footprints in his wake.

* * *

John returned twenty minutes later with a paper cup full of tea and a scowl.

"Tea," requested Sherlock, not looking away from the smiley face on the wall. He extended an open hand expectantly toward John.

"Sorry, didn't get you any," replied John casually, sinking into his armchair and taking a long, slurping, unnecessarily loud sip from his cup.

"I asked you to get me a cup of tea. With two sugars," replied Sherlock, turning to glare at his flatmate.

"You blow up our stock of tea, and you expect me to fix it?" asked John incredulously. "You honestly think I'm that devoted to you?"

"Yes!" replied Sherlock. "Otherwise you wouldn't have risked your life for me on numerous occasions!"

"Tea," answered John self-righteously, "is an entirely different matter."

Someone ran up the stairs two-at-a-time, panting. Sherlock and John looked at each other.

"Mycroft," said John.

At precisely the same time, Sherlock said, "Lestrade."

"Five quid?" asked John.

Sherlock nodded in assent.

Lestrade burst into the apartment. John silently rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled five pound note, which he handed over to Sherlock. Sherlock smiled smugly and dropped the money into the pocket of his housecoat. Lestrade stared at them in confusion.

Getting over his bafflement, Lestrade announced, "We've got a case for you. Somehow, a pathologist managed to give himself a fatal autopsy. Or, more likely, there was foul play involved."

"What sort of foul play?" inquired Sherlock, not bothering to look at Lestrade.

"Er . . . we haven't figured that out yet," replied the detective-inspector, scratching the back of his head. "But we will!" he added defensively.

"It is absolutely imperative that I take this case, not for its intellectual interest but to get me out of this flat," replied Sherlock, standing up. His housecoat flapped around his pajamas. "Let's go."

"Don't you need to get dressed?" asked John.

"Details," sniffed Sherlock, storming around the doctor's chair to his bedroom to change.

John and Lestrade looked at each other. Then, Lestrade did a double take.

"Why are you drinking tea out of a paper cup?" asked Lestrade incredulously.

"Long story," sighed John. "In a nutshell, sensitive dependence on initial conditions."

"You need to stop spending time around Sherlock Holmes," sighed Lestrade.

* * *

**A/N: Ta for reading! This was my first Sherlock fanfic, so tell me what you thought of it in the comments below!**


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